


His Escape

by notenoughtogivebread



Series: Klaine Advent 2015 [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 00:18:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6351295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenoughtogivebread/pseuds/notenoughtogivebread
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Klaine Advent 2015 prompt Escape. This is a future fic; Kurt may be nearing 40? A little meditation on the man he becomes; he's glad he has this place to get away sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Escape

The place wasn’t much to look at, just another of the thousands of small bars that New Yorkers walked past every day—or zipped past in a taxi, on their way to the theatre or to an event in the garment district. It certainly wasn’t the kind of place you’d expect to see Kurt Hummel. There were no beautiful boys dancing, sweating, to a heavy bass beat; or models standing about in their punishing Jimmy Choos not even pretending to drink the pretty cocktails in their hands; no air kisses or deals being made, or bitchy talk, or money talk, or… Mostly, there was no need to perform. Because there was no one here who knew Kurt Hummel, Broadway wunderkind, fashion-forward intimate of Isabelle Wright, husband of dreamy matinee idol Blaine Anderson-Hummel. 

No, here he was just Kurt. Kurt who sat at the end of the bar working on the crossword. Kurt who could _maybe,_ if Jimmy promised to take good care of his suit jacket, roll up his sleeves and join in the running late afternoon darts game. Kurt who could be teased into sitting at lunch with beefy Port Authority mechanics, eating one of Walt’s excellent turkey club sandwiches and talking cars and kids and sports (though he mostly just listened politely when talk turned to the Rangers or the Mets and imagined another, beloved voice explaining Ohio State football and the Cincinnati Reds). 

He didn’t know exactly when he’d become a regular. But when he walked through the door now, hands were raised in greeting and a neat Scotch was poured before he even reached the sunny spot at the end of the bar. He sipped at the scotch as he read the news of the day, sometimes not even finishing the drink before he headed back out the door. He didn’t come here to drink, not really, though Walt did pour surprisingly quality scotch into perfectly balanced rocks glasses. It was more that he needed—well, escape might be the best word for it. 

That’s how he found the bar in the first place, when the halls of NYADA became noticeably less friendly after he came back from a visit to Ohio with a ring on his left hand. “I suppose it’s the price I have to pay for breaking Adam’s heart,” he commented to Elliott on a hot afternoon the following week. Elliott had squeezed into the back booth with him at the end of his shift to share a chilled slice of key lime pie. 

Elliott snorted, “Isn’t that presuming a little?” 

“Well, you’d _think._ I didn’t even know his heart was in danger. But the way the other Apples are acting, you’d think I’d killed his dog in front of him. And they were really my only friends at that bitch factory—except for Rachel, of course.” 

Elliott sat back and considered Kurt, his head tilted. “Could be you need a break from theatre kids. You up for some pool?” 

“Maybe. But not if it involves Brooklyn hipsters. Trader Joe’s this morning gave me quite enough of that species of human.” 

“Okay then. I know just the place for you. Just trust me, okay?” And that’s how they ended up at Walt’s, though it wasn’t called that then. Kurt never really knew the name of the bar back then; still, though it had changed hands over the years, it felt like the guys sitting at the bar were the same. 

That first night, men who had stopped in on their way home to Jersey or Staten Island from work at the Lincoln Tunnel, construction sites, or the train yards greeted Elliott with a grunt or a smile. In the back of the narrow room, a shout of greeting went up, and soon Kurt was swept up into a game of darts with young men named Colm and Barry, with accents as thick as Rory’s from the McKinley days, and the old heads Luis and Adán and Harvey. He hadn’t been sure about stopping at the bar still wearing his diner uniform, but it probably eased the way for him with the darts players. 

“Why do all these guys know you? Is this another relic of your misspent youth?” he asked Elliott at the bar, as they sat with cold beers after the game. A Premier League soccer game droned on in the TV above them. 

“Nah. This is my dad’s local.” 

“Elliott. Your family lives in Metuchen.” 

“Yeah, but my dad worked for the Port Authority. I’ve been coming into this bar since I was a kid. We’d stop in Christmastime, you know, or parade days. They have great sandwiches at lunchtime.” 

Elliott and he still sometimes met here for lunch, Mondays usually. But more often they’d find a place with music—and of course, Blaine came along then, since music was the glue that held Blaine and Elliott together—that, and their affection for Kurt. But this place—Blaine didn’t know about Walt’s. Well, not exactly. He knew Kurt had a place, but he never asked where it was. Just like Kurt knew Blaine had someplace he’d go to play piano where no one knew his name or face, where he wasn’t Daddy, or darling, or husband, or heartthrob—just a guy at a piano. 

But it was true, lately Kurt had taken to stopping at Walt’s more frequently. At least once a week. Maybe it was the worries over whether Mary Grace would get into Brooklyn Latin or how the twins were coping in separate classrooms this year. Maybe it was the tension in the house over Blaine really pushing to get _The High Line_ on to the stage fighting against Kurt’s niggling worry that it just wasn’t ready. Or maybe it was the way Blaine was starting to get that baby hunger look in his eyes again (really, Blaine? Didn’t having TWINS cure you of that?) 

And maybe it was that the person he used to talk out all those worries with just wasn’t there anymore, and he was having to rely on remembered bits of wisdom. So, mostly these days, Walt’s was the place he went when he just missed his Dad. And in this bar at lunchtime he'd find them—not every guy here, but enough of them—big, gruff guys who smelled like oil and transmission fluid, and sometimes had grease under their nails. They made room for him in the front booth and asked him about his kids, and his “ball and chain”, and sometimes said things like “Hey Kurt, you’re gay. Which side do I sit at the wedding when it’s my pal Chris and my cousin Joey gettin’ married?” Yeah, sometimes they made him forget that awful quiet, and made the ache of missing the old man go away for a few hours.


End file.
